SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA - Police said three men were arrested after officers seized fake pieces of gold and platinum following a Saskatchewan traffic stop and may be involved in suspicious sales in three Prairie provinces.

The left one is the fake. It's hard to go by the bar itself because there's a slight difference in the zoom of the pics. However, the printing on the back of the left one is all wrong. The line spacing is too compressed so that the signature actually extends below the serial number.

*** LOOKING FOR YPS #17 & 18s. Please contact me if you have any for sale.***

I'll go right as this is a game and to be contrarian. But the corners look too square, the number printing is weak and the logo printing on the front does not look correct. But hey, I am usually wrong .

One is real, just arrived from JM Bullion this week. The other is a fake from China.

The pictures were taken with the bars side-by-side. The top is one picture, the bottom is another picture.

Both assay cards still have the peel-off protective film in place on both sides.

The length and width of the assay cards are essentially identical.

In this case, the PMV with the small wand did pick out the fake. However, I have other Perth and Pamp fakes in assay cards that have enough copper in them that the PMV thinks they are real. So when testing these bars, if the PMV says it is fake, it is more than likely fake. But if the PMV says it is real, that alone isn't enough to verify it.

It seems a few of you would have chosen the fake bar over the real one. Indeed the fakes are actually sometimes a bit "prettier" than the real thing.

This particular fake has been floating around for nearly a year. I wonder how many have been sold to unsuspecting buyers on Craigslist and eBay and at pawn shops and even coin dealers? And how many of those have unknowingly been resold by innocent victims? And how many are stashed away in safes and will hit the market again in 1 year or 10 years or 50 years?

It's a problem, and it's only going to get worse as more fakes come into the country and accumulate.

I just got some interesting specs on "in stock" gold-plated tungsten fakes directly from a Chinese seller, as well as a screenshot of an email from somebody in the US to the counterfeiters discussing plating thicknesses. I'll be posting those shortly in the FakeBullion.com members only forum and eventually I'll write a public piece up about them.

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The full comparison is posted in the Fake Bullion Database. Available now for supporting members, available in 60 days for the general public. I will be removing the bars from the cards to do a comparison of the bars themselves next.